I have to preface what I am about to say with this: I am a new collector and with most new collectors, I don't have the financial means to go out and buy a pristine copy of a highly sought after book. Limited edition and signed books are still out of my range. Therefore, I have been relegated to the thrift store, used bookstore and estate/garage sales to find copies of books. Therefore, I am regularly buying books that have some type of condition issue(s). Now, onto my question . . .

For those of you who have been collecting for longer than I have, when you are buying a book off the secondary market, what condition issue(s) are you tolerating in the books that you are buying. Obviously, some (if not all) depends on the rarity and price of the book. And, buying a copy with no issues is better than one with them. What issues are you willing to never accept?

In order to get every SK book I bought some pretty rough copies of the harder to get ones. As time and opportunity marched on I replaced these with better copies. For me it's a never ending hunt to find better copies.

TrueNorth wrote:In order to get every SK book I bought some pretty rough copies of the harder to get ones. As time and opportunity marched on I replaced these with better copies. For me it's a never ending hunt to find better copies.

That's been my philosophy since I began to seriously collect. Since I was buying most of my books for $5 or less, I finally decided if I kept looking for a perfect copy, that I would be looking for a long time and would be passing up on copies that might have one or two slight imperfections. I decided that it was better to own a "seasoned" desirable copy than to not own one at all. There are some issues that I would never accept: mold, no DJ and severe spine issues. I also have to keep telling myself that any SK book released in the last 2-3 years isn't very likely to be in the $1 bin looking to be cleared out. Time will come and my collection will grow one used book at a time.

TrueNorth wrote:In order to get every SK book I bought some pretty rough copies of the harder to get ones. As time and opportunity marched on I replaced these with better copies. For me it's a never ending hunt to find better copies.

That's been my philosophy since I began to seriously collect. Since I was buying most of my books for $5 or less, I finally decided if I kept looking for a perfect copy, that I would be looking for a long time and would be passing up on copies that might have one or two slight imperfections. I decided that it was better to own a "seasoned" desirable copy than to not own one at all. There are some issues that I would never accept: mold, no DJ and severe spine issues. I also have to keep telling myself that any SK book released in the last 2-3 years isn't very likely to be in the $1 bin looking to be cleared out. Time will come and my collection will grow one used book at a time.

I've also bought rough copies, typically because it was a screaming deal. Mentally that's makes aquiring a better copy less "urgent" (for lack of a better term) and I can take longer finding a better deal on a pristine copy, knowing I already have one on the shelf. Afterwards I often offload the old copy